


The Necklace

by archea2



Series: The Reason for the Unreason [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Jewelry, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 22:06:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Greg gives Sherlock a pearl necklace. </p><p>Originally written to launch a Not-Porn Porn Challenge on my LiveJournal. (Well, the boys are nekkid, but that's all, really.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Necklace

"There's something," Lestrade said finally, looking into the warm haze of fire.

Sherlock's hum of breath stilled against his thigh, prompting him to add, "Something I want you to have."

"Oh," Sherlock said, prudent yet not unpleased as he carried a deft horizontal somersault, rolling over from Lestrade's lap onto the rug and hoisting himself on his elbows so as to meet the new riddle eye to eye. _Creature of the night_ , Lestrade thought with a nod at the bygone eighties. Letting his eyes loiter with unconcealed intent over the sight. Sherlock naked fitted his body like a glove, and didn't he know it.

"It's not a ring, is it?" the Spartan was asking in near-plaintive tones. "Gold _itches_. I'd have to wear it on a chain, and that's a liability in my line of work. Think of ..."

"Hush" – and Lestrade pressed a cautionary finger to that buxom underlip. "No, not gold. Not new either." He was fumbling in the shadows for his discarded trousers, carrying on with a nervous swipe at gravity. "Or blue, or borrowed." Gotcha. Back pocket - yes, still there. Not that he'd given Sherlock any opportunity to frisk him in the last hour.

"Oh, isn't it?" Sherlock's voice had gone low.

Lestrade found his gaze and raised it, literally raised it, tilting up Sherlock's chin with his finger while he kept his other hand behind his back. "Borrowed? Nope. All mine now, so have another guess."

His to have and hold, and his to give again. To give, even against the odds that time would one day double back and cut the exact same pang in his chest. Old jazz, old trick, finding the little rope and wondering why she, well, he, hadn't gone the whole damn hog and broken it, just broken the sodding, symbolic chain, instead of leaving it coiled at the bottom of his bedside table drawer.

His first real gift to Debbie, back when they were absolute beginners - and he still on a symbolic pay, too.

Squeezing it in the hollow of his hand, he strived to remember. Her look upon getting his gift. Had she smiled? Or gasped? Seen it for the sign it was, the pledge, or only the money gone to waste? He'd laughed, that he remembered. They were so young then. Had said "Eh, who waits thirty years these days?", fastening the thread round her neck.

The drawer had jammed and stuck in the early morning grey.

"Three years," Lestrade said, stretching his hand open. His naked hand, where Sherlock could see the grain-like pearls and how they gleamed in the firelight. Debbie had worn them every day that first year under her schoolmarmish turtlenecks. "They die if you don't," her words, and even while he'd joked about pearl-clutching, there had been pride and lust in his heart. He had felt them against his cheek, every night, every time he bent his head to suck at the soft dip of her throat.

Now he couldn't remember when she'd started to take them off. For choir practice, she'd said vaguely, and left it at that. For Tai Chi, Chi Gong, Yoga, Oriental dancing, swimming, and finally her new tone-up program, and then - yeah. But that was then, and now Sherlock was taking them from his hand. The string was short; it didn't allow the necklace to hang much from his neck; rather, the pearls seemed to target it, encircle it, white upon white, a trophy that would stay and gleam and - change. For as Lestrade watched, he saw how they gathered in a sharp dew of clarity, drew the fire into them until they were matching Sherlock's own bright, pellucid eyes – until they gave the same quiet, unquiet light.

Lust and pride no longer covered it.

His hand was being taken, lifted and wrapped around the slender neck, Sherlock's hand tightening the clasp until Lestrade could feel the pearls' round surface against his palm. There was nothing soft here, or bland, no domestic reassurance, nothing that came close to Debbie's yielding milkiness.

But the last three years had been a string of nights, tied by loss, and Sherlock's hand was still covering his, pressing it hard enough for the pearls to leave their imprint on both their flesh.

 _A bond_ , the gesture said and went on saying, until Sherlock lowered their hands onto his lap. But it was only to tilt his head all the way back, the string tautening at the base of his neck. And Lestrade felt his own heart contract at the beauty of it, primal and decadent and all-decisive.

Leaning forward until his lips touched the dip of Sherlock's neck, he let the fourth year begin.


End file.
